I've been working as the Social Media Editor and a staff writer at Forbes since October 2011. Prior to that, I worked as a freelance writer and contributor here. On this blog, I focus on futurism, cutting edge technology, and breaking research. Follow me on Twitter - @thealexknapp. You can email me at aknapp@forbes.com

White House Denies Petition Request To Build A Death Star

A few weeks ago, a group of people drafting a petition at the White House petition site made headlines for their request that the United States government “secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016.” The petition garnered well over the 25,000 required supporters needed for the White House to provide a response.

Today, the White House has officially responded, and explains exactly why it will not be building a Death Star. The Administration cites first of all the enormous cost of the endeavor and points out that it opposes the destruction of planets. Wisely, the White House also stated, “Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?”

I admit I got a chuckle out of this, but for the most part I find the White House petition site to be something of a waste of time. Especially when people use it for gimmicks like building a Death Star or demanding the deportation of talk show hosts. That said, there is one truly positive thing about the White House’s response to this petition. Rather than simply leave it at the geek level, the Petition team went on to note some of the incredible work being done by NASA, both by itself and in cooperation with the private sector.

If it takes a silly gimmick like a Death Star petition to get people to see some of the amazing things being accomplished by our space program, I’m all for that.

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” Given the size and power of the Death Star, denying us the right to make such a big gun is undoubtedly the biggest infringement of our second amendment rights ever. What’s the NRA’s position on this? ” rickwo

The argument for building a Death Star hinges on its ability to destroy planets in other stellar systems since every indication to date is that the Earth is the only planet in its stellar system with a major civilization. No scientist on Earth has yet established a proven way as how one might propel even a relatively small space craft in the scale of the Apollo command vehicle at near light speeds never mind a huge piece of space junk like a Death Star. The Death Star project concept falls in a practical sense at the first hurdle as nobody knows how to build a near light speed propulsion engine for it. There are very good reasons for the Obama Administration, ( good that is for the Obama Administration but not good for America ), to brush over that aspect of the argument against a Death Star and that is, it suits the Obama Administration to have US citizens believe that the US has technological capabilities it actually does not have as if more members of the US public understood the limitations of even best leading edge technology in certain areas, they might well become concerned that the Obama Administration was engaging in irresponsibly reckless behavior in its pandering to Islamic extremism.

‘operation dark winter’ 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hABMVGrr7VA

@ rickwo if you want the NRA’s position you will have to ask the NRA. Let me state from the get go that I do not represent the NRA. My guess is that the NRA would not support a Death Star as it is not a practical weapon as there is no realistic propulsion system for it. On the other hand I would assume that many NRA members would have concerns about the Obama Administration’s lack of commitment to anti-ballistic missile defense.

The Obama Administration is not going to build a Death Star and I do not have a problem with that but the Obama Administration is also refusing to fund a second development air-frame for the Boeing anti-ballistic missile laser battle station and that I regard as a serious policy error. ICBMs are 1960s technology and the nuclear weapons of the Little Boy fission type are quite easy to build if one has a sufficient quantity of weapons grande Uranium 235, so there are very real problems of long range missile and nuclear weapons proliferation. Because of the damage that a single nuclear weapon can do, an overlapping defense capability is required against a nuclear attack.

adrianwainer, what’s the big deal if we can’t have near-light-speed propulsion? It’s that big-ass gun that ought to make every red-blooded american’s testosterone gush like a gamma ray burst. Think of how cool it would be to say, a la Crocodile Dundee, “That’s not a gun.” and point to the sky and say “THAT’s a gun.”, or like Clint Eastwood “Go ahead, make my day”! Besides, in times that demand severe economic austerity, we can postpone spending on the near light speed engines for a few years, which ought to save a few quadrillion bucks.

“adrianwainer, what’s the big deal if we can’t have near-light-speed propulsion? It’s that big-ass gun that ought to make every red-blooded american’s testosterone gush like a gamma ray burst. Think of how cool it would be to say, a la Crocodile Dundee, “That’s not a gun.” and point to the sky and say “THAT’s a gun.”, or like Clint Eastwood “Go ahead, make my day”! Besides, in times that demand severe economic austerity, we can postpone spending on the near light speed engines for a few years, which ought to save a few quadrillion bucks.” rickwo 8

I rather suspect that your original posting was based on an assumption that you could thrash the NRA and it was unlikely in the extreme that you would bump in to somebody who is a gun enthusiast and would have a working knowledge of military space technology. You argument such as it is, seems to center round an implied assertion that the membership of the NRA are all cretinous idiots. You are as much entitled to your beliefs as anybody but the structure on which you were apparent trying to hang such a claim appears to have fallen apart faster than the Hindenburg came down in Lakehurst NJ Thursday, May 6, 1937.

There argument for building a Death Star hinges on its ability to destroy planets in other stellar systems since every indication to date is that the Earth is the only planet in its stellar system with a major civilization. No scientist on Earth has yet established a proven way as how one might propel even a relatively small space craft in the scale of the Apollo command vehicle at near light speeds never mind a huge piece of space junk like a Death Star. The Death Star project concept falls in a practical sense at the first hurdle as nobody knows how to build a near light speed propulsion engine for it. There are very good reasons for the Obama Administration, ( good that is for the Obama Administration but not good for America ), to brush over that aspect of the argument against a Death Star and that is, it suits the Obama Administration to have US citizens believe that the US has technological capabilities it actually does not have as if more members of the US public understood the limitations of even best leading edge technology in certain areas, they might well become concerned that the Obama Administration was engaging in irresponsibly reckless behavior in its pandering to Islamic extremism.

” ” “Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?” “ ,. Alex Knapp

The Obama Administration’s basic policy is fundamentally flawed in making a fantastical claim that the West is not under attack from an Arab racial supremacist Islamist Grand Jihad entity. If the Obama Administration could see that a Death Star concept could have a flaw in it, why can’t the Obama Administration see it is living in cloud cuckoo land as regards its attitude to Arab Islamist aggression and the explanation for that is I believe the Obama Administration is essentially Quisling in nature and is fully aware that the West is under attack from an Arab racial supremacist Islamist Grand Jihad entity and that the Obama Administration is attempting to give the American people the mushroom treatment in order to advantage the Arab racial supremacist Islamist Grand Jihad entity in its efforts to destroy Western civilization.

I recently got a spam warning for posting the above in to Google+ threads.

Point 1

Just because Google+ users report a posting as being spam, it does not mean it actually is spam. For example had Google+ existed in the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan would presumably have tried to get postings referring to the murder of and assaults on decent and law abiding black folks by white racist thugs flagged as spam and removed from Google+.

Point 2

If it is the case that Google+ plus wishes to censor user content in order to support the likes of neo-Nazis or Arab racial supremacist Islamists or Stalinist Communists or turbo-capitalists or Saloth Sar style genocidal Anarchists and will not tolerate criticism of such groupings and their like, Google+ should clearly state that it is site policy to support the likes of, for example, Adolf Hitler’s or Stalin’s ideology and no criticism of that ideology will be tolerated.

NB Google+ and Forbes are two different organizations and Forbes does not have responsibility for Google+. I have posted this item here given its connection to the original article and also to highlight that free speech on Facebook and to a lesser extent on Google+ does not really exist in the real-world of how the Facebook and Google+ sites actually operate unless its suits the interests of the likes of the Obama Administration and the Arab Islamist Fascists.

Since the resouces are out of our reach, why don’t we do like the soviets did in the 1980′s ? Without resources to build airplanes and weapons, they just drew fake airplanes on the pavement in airports and had fake missiles driven around so the american intelligence would believe they had much more weaponry than they really had. Considering this lesson, lets build a hollow death star made of cardboard and paint it silver. To any allien observing from light years away, it will look like a real death star for a fraction of the cost of the real thing.

“Since the resouces are out of our reach, why don’t we do like the soviets did in the 1980′s ? Without resources to build airplanes and weapons, they just drew fake airplanes on the pavement in airports and had fake missiles driven around so the american intelligence would believe they had much more weaponry than they really had. Considering this lesson, lets build a hollow death star made of cardboard and paint it silver. To any allien observing from light years away, it will look like a real death star for a fraction of the cost of the real thing.” brumeistern

It is an entirely legitimate issue that there might be a very serious threat arising from an Alien civilization which is current unknown at this point in time. Even putting a fake Death Star in to space would be a hugely expensive exercise and then Aliens might not recognize it is supposed to be a weapon, they might for example think it an art instillation. If they did assume it was a weapon that might encourage them to investigate it further and find it was non-working dummy. Another possibility is that Aliens might assume it was Death Star that was on its way to becoming operational and encourage them to attack Earth whereas previously they were going to ignore Earth. You are not comparing like with like since the USSR military had a good understanding of what the reconnaissance capabilities and intelligence gathering capability of the United States was but if an Alien civilization is monitoring Earth’s activities there is no knowing what reconnaissance and intelligence capability it has.

Robotic spacecraft could play a role in the defense of Earth if it was possible to mount any sort of fightback to an alien attack. Since robotic spacecraft have conventional scientific exploration and commercial applications it would seem to me that to continue to develop robotic equipment for use in space commercial and science projects is the best route to establish a defense option to respond to a possible future attack by an Alien civilization.